Journal of Travel Literature Studies
JTLS, Vol. 1, No. 1, 2026, pp. 98-106.
Print ISSN: 3135-6788; Online ISSN: 3135-6796
Journal homepage: https://www.tlsjournal.com
DOI：https://doi.org/10.64058/JTLS.26.1.06
From Movement to Metaphor: A Review of Junwu Tian’s American Travel Narratives and Cultural Metaphors in Twentieth-Century Fiction[1]
Jinxiang Huang
Abstract: Junwu Tian’s American Travel Narratives and Cultural Metaphors in Twentieth-Century Fiction examines how travel in twentieth-century American fiction becomes both a narrative structure and a cultural metaphor. This review approaches the book by grouping the forms of travel discussed by Tian into two major categories: vehicle-based travel and quest-like travel. The first category shows how movement by car, train, or carriage can signify postwar restlessness, social aspiration, economic survival, historical loss, or modern violence in different texts. The second category examines how modern American fiction revises the classical quest structure through heroic journeys, wandering, drifting, time-space travel, and spiritual search. Particular attention is given to Tian’s use of biographical and genetic criticism, since the book repeatedly links writers’ travel experiences to the genesis of their literary works. By connecting authors, individual works, modes of mobility, and cultural meanings with the experiential, historical, and creative origins from which they emerge, the book offers a systematic account of how twentieth-century American travel narratives take shape.
Keywords: travel literature; cultural metaphor; twentieth-century American fiction; mobility; genetic criticism
Author Biography: Jinxiang Huang is an undergraduate student majoring in English at Beihang University, China. Her research interests include modern and contemporary drama, twentieth-century literature, and narrative theory. Email: 13352026999@163.com.
Received: 15 Feb 2026 / Revised: 26 Mar 2026 / Accepted: 8 Apr 2026 / Published online: 30 May 2026 / Print published: 30 Sep 2026.
